Former Mugabe personal banker and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe(RBZ) chief Doctor Gideon Gono has insinuated that if he was Mangudya, he would print Bond Notes non-stop to save lives.
An unrepentant Gono said that he would rather have “monetary inflation” over what he termed “inflation of dead bodies.”
While acknowledging that this would cause massive runaway inflation, Gono said that he was willing to print money because it would guarantee the availability of electricity and also stop people from dying.
While talking to the press in Norton Doctor Gono said:
I was faced with a situation where I could have left or let inflation be at even zero percent and fold my hands and not even print a penny during my tenure, but what could have been the consequence of doing that?
I chose to have monetary inflation and keep people alive,
What is inflation after all; inflation if we broaden our definition is the change that has happened between today and yesterday. If we had to say 10 people dying because of cholera or lack of drugs, if we had 20 people tomorrow and 30 people next; what is rate of inflation; it would go into billions.
What would have been the situation in an environment where the country did not have foreign exchange? Foreign exchange to bring in fuel; I know we had our own challenges with fuel queues; well I am not going to compare the two periods. I live it up to you.
I know we don’t make medical drugs; neither do we make medical equipment. I know we had challenges with doctors; I would go out there and engage them. I am not going to compare that period with now.
We have never had, as a country, enough electricity to sustain ourselves. We have always had to import electricity in an environment where we did not have lines of credit from outside the country; in an environment where exporters were not doing that well and yet we needed electricity. What was I supposed to do?
I am not going to compare my period and today. But one thing is sure. You did not work up at midnight to do your ironing. We had a situation, which we also have right now, where we could not provide ourselves with water treatment chemicals. I know we ran out of water, but am not going to compare now with my period.
